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Godin’s Rule: Working The System Trumps Beating The System

We all know that while tax minimization is ok, tax evasion will deliver us into hot water – fast.

Seth Godin compares this and other binary activities of going with the flow, rather than trying to cut through it and crystallizes out a rule that can be applied to the web:

The web is nothing but a system, a bunch of (largely unwritten) rules regarding search, linking, promotion, etc. It’s fascinating to watch as some people work hard to work the system, and succeed time and time again, while others waste countless hours with one scheme after another designed to beat the system. They invent cloaking devices and seo scams and pyramid schemes and lightly disguised spam pages, constantly struggling to stay ahead (and to stay quiet). Sure, you can beat the system (any system) for a while, but it’s a constant struggle.

He has a good point – play in the spirit of the game and you’ll continue to be a player.

2 Comments

This is quite interesting. But then is it not true that all the systems are here to achieve something? The question is how can we, working together with the system try and achieve definite goals from them.

For example, I am on linkedin and I answer many questions which I could in order to connect with people and make contacts who might be helpful to me in many ways in the future, maybe in my business, maybe in my next job search, maybe in socializing in new areas, anywhere. The long term gains of social networking are many. Similarly, I am on facebook, I am on Orkut and I connect with so many people. I made a blog of my own and I have also been on Twitter and Hubpages and everywhere. But what next?

I would like to use all this to meet an end for the greater good. I would like to work for and with the system to achieve something. One of my recent question on Linkedin regarding internet and our over dependence on it (which later was concluded is not the case) led me to many conclusions. The most important one was that only 1.3 billion people use internet today and more than 2 billion people earn below $2 per day in the world. This is from the total of 6.6 billion people around the world. Having said this, how can we collectively make the system work in such a way that it is working for a larger cause, which can be helping the needy, fighting global warming, controlling oil prices.

I think we all should join hands in working towards a larger cause and rising above our own personal goals.

I could envision a strong collective of like-minded people all with a high level of uniques acting in unison – a lobby group of highly connected individuals making a positive difference to the world we live in – this does not necessarily have to be done as a social/not for profit — the power lies in our ability to achieve goals above and beyond what our governments ever could because of their mandates.